Why Elizabeth Eisenstein might have been a technological determinist: And why, in the end, it does not really matter

Abstract

Abstract This article makes the case for Elizabeth Eisenstein’s continuing relevance by returning to the question of technological determinism, a fraught issue in the historical study of communication generally and in discussions of Eisenstein’s work specifically. After reviewing the arguments against technological determinism, I propose that, even were we to concede that Eisenstein was a determinist, the questions raised by her study of the printing press continue to provoke interesting paths of research for historians of the early modern age. Perhaps her most important contribution has been to highlight the fact that technological artefacts can be considered social actors (or ‘agents of change’). I illustrate this point by an example from the time period: the mediated treatment of an annual sporting event, the Dover Games, which took place in the Cotswold Hills from about 1612 to 1642. Thus, while it is important to take into account the criticisms of Eisenstein’s work (and this is true whether we consider her to be a technological determinist or not), her style of historical investigation remains relevant for study into how print, and indeed other media technologies, has affected the evolution of our social environment.